Monthly Archives: October 2016

Yes, I get it, Halloween is a bit late to decide this. It’s fine, I decided weeks ago. I even planned out a few “leading up to” blog posts I would post over the last two weeks. It’s just things have been pretty busy lately and unfortunately that has meant blogging has taken the hit as being pretty far down the priorities list. Job hunting, dealing with a car that keeps breaking down, feeding my parents’ cat while they’ve been away, and various other pressing issues have taken precedence.

Anyway, I will be attempting NaNoWriMo. I will be writing a story based on last year’s NaNoWriMo, but with some significant changes. Here’s a blurb:

Since the great city of Caer burned and Kell did not in spite of being in the middle of it, and subsequently being saved from a mob by a man magically bound to the Brown River and somehow part of it, she’s been looking for others like her, others touched by magic. Leaving Shen to search along the banks of his river, Kell has crossed an immense plain to reach the White River, hoping to find another like Shen there, or at least someone who has heard of others like her.

Atoni is a princess, one of many nieces and nephews of the king of Porroa, and like all her siblings and cousins, she has a role in the structure of the family and government of Porroa: the Deputy Minister for Architecture and Construction. Her uncle the King wants to build the greatest monument the world has ever seen, but with the arrival of a lone traveller from the Brown River it’s clear that the world is a great deal bigger than anyone in Porroa ever realised. Atoni is sent on a mission to record the greatest monuments of the Brown River cultures, and establish initial diplomatic relations with any she feels Porroa could trade with, so that her uncle’s ambitions can be fulfilled and her own legend can begin.

When Kell and Atoni team up, they are ready for the adventures and travels that await them.

Now that we’re well into the series, with all the key components set up in previous episodes, episode 5 should have given a sense of the true threat of the antagonist, Amon, and his Equalist movement. Instead it felt like a slow-down, a filler episode.

There are two threads running through episode 5: the love triangle and the probending tournament. They’re quite well interwoven, with the emotional impacts of the former affecting the latter. But there’s no real threat. Let’s get into it.

Bolin is so adorable.

The episode starts with snow, showing the passage of time and developing a cosy atmosphere. As the Fire Ferrets come in for a team huddle to discuss their training session, looks between characters reveal that Bolin likes Korra, Korra like Mako, and Mako feels uncomfortable. After the training session ends, we see Bolin’s terrible but endearing flirtation technique. He later discusses Korra with Mako, and it’s clear from Mako’s responses, in which he compares Korra to Asami then tries to put Bolin off dating Korra (telling him it’s a bad idea to date teammates, which is good advice but backed up by an ulterior motive) shows that Mako isn’t committed to dating Asami and has feelings about Korra. Korra’s subsequent conversation with Jinora, Ikki and Pema demonstrates she’s interested in Mako too.

By this point, the whole first five minutes of the episode has been focused on romance, with the probending side of it taking a background role. Finally some tournament action starts (and I’ll go into more detail about that in a moment), but it doesn’t last – after Korra is unconvincingly rejected by Mako, she goes on a date with Bolin for fun.

Yeah, Mako doesn’t look like he’s focused on his relationship with Asami at all.

But before their next match she gets in an argument with Mako about their feelings for one another, kisses him and breaks Bolin’s heart when he sees them. This leads to poor teamwork in the probending arena, before they all realise it’s not worth it and make up. At the end of the episode, the romantic situation is effectively reset, as if none of it happened.

Poor brokenhearted Bolin

This romantic subplot is the problem I had with this series the first time I watched it. We’ve got a love triangle here, and it’s so predictable. But it’s also so unnecessary, and that goes doubly for this particular episode. If we just have Bolin start to see Korra as a friend instead of a romantic interest organically through simply knowing her better, and keep Korra and Mako with unacknowledged mutual crushes, very little would have needed to be changed in later episodes to keep the romantic subplot alive. I don’t feel a romantic subplot is necessary at all, but someone did and I can understand the motivation on that, but I think its role in episode 5 is so overdone for cheap drama.

And without the romantic subplot there would have been more time in this episode to set up Tahno and the Wolfbats as a great tournament rival.

So let’s get back to earlier in the episode: at the end of the Fire Ferrets’ training session, Asami brings the new uniforms. She’s tied into the Krew through her father’s sponsorship of the team and her romantic involvement with Mako, and it’s clear she will continue to be an important character, though in this episode she’s still a minor character.

At the team’s first match, the commentator mentions the improvement they demonstrate, and attributes this to more training, as evidenced by the Avatar’s withdrawal from active duty in Councilman Tarrlok’s taskforce. We get the impression that some time has passed and that Korra has been hard at work focusing on her training. The Fire Ferrets’ convincing win illustrates this, and they’re through to the next round.

The Fire Ferrets celebrate their first win

When Korra and Bolin are out for a date, Korra finally meets Tahno for the first time – though if she’s been reading her newspapers cover to cover, she’ll already be aware of him as his photograph was in the paper in a previous episode. Tahno is the leader of the White Falls Wolfbats probending team, the reigning champions of the tournament for the last three years, and this encounter shows him as arrogant, vain and not above using underhand tactics, like trying to bait Korra into hitting him, which would disqualify the Fire Ferrets from the tournament.

Tahno thinks he’s so smooth, but really he’s just slimy.

It’s a sign of Korra’s restraint, of her personal development under Tenzin’s guidance, that she refused to be baited – but she’s not lost her attitude, and rather than getting into a fight that would have cost her team dearly, she got Naga to roar at Tahno, showing him that she was entirely capable of standing up to him without breaking any rules.

And he’s not as brave as he makes out, squealing with fear at Naga’s roar.

The Fire Ferrets go on to their next match in a state of disorder thanks to arguments and resentments arising from the romantic subplot – Bolin feeling betrayed by Mako, Korra and Mako angry at one another in spite of their kiss, Korra feeling guilty for having hurt Bolin. They do not perform well, but are saved at the last minute, going through as a result of Korra’s sheer strength and the skills she has learned as a result of their intensive training.

Thankfully Korra’s a good enough waterbender, helped by luck with her opponents lining up in a row, that she manages to make a last-second knock-out.

With some more time in the episode created by the removal of the romantic subplot, it would have been possible to see more of the Wolfbats, including seeing them in action in the arena against another team – it would, after all, have been a good idea for the Fire Ferrets to observe other matches in order to identify their opponents’ strengths and weaknesses. And not just in the arena, but outside it too – how do they interact with fans or treat other teams in public encounters? The show runners could have built up a picture of the threat the Wolfbats pose to the Fire Ferrets, and perhaps go more into Tahno as a direct rival to Korra.

Instead all we see is the confrontation in the restaurant, and the Wolfbats’ opponents being taken off in stretchers after the shortest match ever, which all happened off-screen while the Fire Ferrets were getting over their earlier romantic conflicts.

Overall this episode feels like a step down. Fluff. There’s a dangerous criminal out there who is capable of removing a person’s bending, a man with thousands of followers willing to do actual harm to bending leaders and in particular the Avatar, and what does that Avatar occupy her time with? Crushing on Mako and trying to win a competition. The commentator might appreciate her attitude to training, but I can imagine various journalists writing scathing articles about the Avatar taking time out of fulfilling her duties to Republic City to play a game.

Without the romantic subplot of this episode, there was a lot more it could have achieved in developing Tahno as a character. It could have also acknowledged the threat Amon poses, perhaps with reports that Equalist activity is down, or that a prominent Equalist has been captured or an Equalist hideout has been raided and resources captured – something to show that Tarrlok’s taskforce is active, that the threat is currently reduced and that as such it would not be too inappropriate for the Avatar to focus on probending instead of stopping Amon.

Without Amon even being mentioned, and Korra’s activities attempting to stop him barely being brushed upon, there isn’t any sense of threat in this episode. The romantic drama feels empty and pointless, especially once it’s been resolved. And Tahno and the Wolfbats don’t feel like a serious threat even just to their tournament chances, even though they’re reigning champions, because we don’t see them fighting and cannot compare it to the Fire Ferrets’ matches.